Wednesday, May 13, 2009

I've made a fairly large update to the loot listing article for Ulduar. It should be mostly complete at this point. We don't know Algalon's loot table and we don't have the weapons down, but everything else should be set.Go check it out.

On a side note, doing some meta analysis leads me to the following conclusions:

-The easiest pvp item to get is the bracers, which happens to be close to best in slot and is best in slot for normal-mode content.-however, for pure bang-for-your-buck, the pvp belt is a much bigger upgrade from T7 content. Then the boots, then the bracers.-The best tier token to get as an upgrade is the gloves, followed by the legs. The head is okay. The chest and shoulders are both meh.-Leviathan's Coil is one of the biggest potential upgrades in the game for bears.-So are the gloves.-So is Heart of Iron.-Shoulderpads of the Intruder are simply the best item on the Ulduar loot table for bears, and they should always be prioritized no matter what else you have.-necks aren't that good.

If I had to do a priority list of gear from Ulduar normal content, I'd do it like this:HandsLeviathan's Coil(big gap)LegsHeart of Iron (depending on what your other trinkets are)Feet (go for PvP if you can)Waist (go for PvP if you can)(big gap)HeadChestWrist (go for PvP if you can)Shoulders(sidegrades)BackNeck

I got the pvp gloves day 1 of the patch literally 30 minutes after the servers came up from emalon. talk about lucky.

few constructive criticisms from someone with access to most hard modes (with the preface that I have been known around the community to be a whore for hit and expertise):

Back would be a little higher on my list because of the nerf to 25 man hodir. If you are in a guild killing him hold out for icy intent and pass the auryia one to people who can use defense. (that and it pulls double duty as my dps cape too)

wrists I would not upgrade from thrusting bands unless you are getting the xt ones. With so much other pvp gear being best in slot hit and expertise are way way down in ulduar and the old wrists are a good place to conserve some of the loss.

I will probably never upgrade my neck from KT unless the one from 25 man trash drops, again i hate dropping below 26 expertise.

Hard mode Iron Council is a very very challenging encounter on 25 man otherwise i am assuming shoulders should be higher on the list?

for non hard modes though i agree with that list 100% amazing work as always and thanks

Hey you know, I was just reevaluating pvp gear again. I know, I know, I know its "bis" by some definition of tank survivability, but do you really think its worth it? By giving so much priority to stamina + agility, and ignoring damage stats?

Since my guild is going to give us tanks orbs for free, I'm going to make a death warmed belt: when you look at what you'd loose fully gemmed in one gemming setup, the crafted belt gives +1 stamina, -6 agilty, and a ton more threat. I personally like that trade off: I'd rather see some fights over + done with that much quicker. I've never seen a tank theorycraft that takes into account the dps stats ability of a tank, meaning that you get a higher chance of tank survivability the quicker the fight finishes.

I think its MUCH harder to model for starters. Maybe my intuition is wrong, but I have some great (+ random, unproved) anecdoes:

- mimiron: when I use OON, our tanks take 4 plasmas. When I use Twisted, we take 3

- thorim arena: with bear swipe using twisted, we NEVER get overwhelmed in the arena. Using any other tank classes except ferals, or using OON, we always get overwhelmed.

In these 2 cases (pure anecdotes I know) the ferals higher dps leads to a much more successful kill probability. I have a valid reason for leaving that junk furious gear I've picked up from Emalon in the bank.

DaveP - Thanks. On the damage = good tank thing, I do agree that it can make a difference on getting things down some times, or it can mean things are more smooth - but at the same time, that usually isn't the primary consideration on a fight. The difference between OON and TN for your personal DPS is going to be around 250 at most. For threat, it'll be around 500. Now, if your DPS was really threat-capped that'd be important - and maybe having a really huge threat lead gives your DPS the confidence to push harder, I don't know. But by itself? It's not that much damage on the whole scheme of things.

Ok fair enough, but I was getting at something a little deeper (maybe) since you say you're here to discuss the philosophy of tanking as well. I think its a philosophical difference, if you will.

The 250 extra dps may not sound like much (but on aoe packs it's more), but then what does a loss of 6 agility mean? 6 less attack power, 12 less armor, .0x less dodge and .0y less crit, more or less.

So, philosophically (not mathematically) speaking, which is the better piece? Or even, from a common sense pov, with full knowledge of the math of course, which is better?

You may think I'm nitpicking, but to me, its very important. A lot of druids are pissed (including me!) that pvp gear is BiS for survivability tanking. Whether or not its really "Bis" - and therefore, whether or not we should be pissed - to me depends upon more factors than the mathematics of survivability tanking.

And the bottom line is: are you a fool to pursue arena gear if you want to be a badass endgame tank at the t8 level? Or are you a fool not to?

DaveP, I think that's probably a good rant for another article down the road, but the quick teaser is that I agree with you in one respect (arena gear isn't so crucial to get) but for another reason. It's not that 250 DPS or 100 stamina is going to make that much of a difference. It's that the skill of the tank and the skill of the raid are going to make significantly more difference in downing content than getting marginal improvements in gear, as long as you're not idiotic about your gearing strategies.

This isn't always true; Sarth3D was a prime example where gearing a certain way made the fight significantly less complex. But on the vast majority of fights it's certainly the case.

Ok cool, look forward to it. I agree with those reasons too, and I very much hope that Sarth was a good intro to hard modes, and that they've learned a lot from the experience.

I agree very much actually. I mean we stuggled for a night on general before we got him down. The sympton? Tank death, and I was sporting 51k in a very reasonable, non-polar, non-pvp set.

The cause? random, unplanned healer rotations, with all healers running off to regen, leaving me on my own for 4 seconds :(

The kill? Once healers got it sorted, my health never dropped below 40%, and like all good kills, was mostly >80%. So, if I had access to another 3000 stamina, we may have gotten the kill a bit quicker that evening. :P Meanwhile, better guilds than mine are already working on hard mode.

My comment on PvP is that looking at IC, I anticipate needing the survivability gear (at least at first). I will admit that I will probably pick up TV at some point as a threat piece, but I would rather get the 1850 staff and other pvp gear before I head in to see Mr. Arthas.

ThinkTank bio

About Me

Kalon likes playing tanks, no matter how hard he tries to fight it. He is not as hardcore as many but spends a lot of time thinking about WoW, and randomly rants about it now and then. He played formerly on the Argent Dawn (EU) server and was a founding member of Fire and Blood (Quel'Dorei) before joining Casually Serious, a guild devoted to hard core progression on only 8 hours of raiding time a week.
He is a devoted husband, father, and when he has the time programs software.